The offseason is over.  F1 has come back for 2011 with the traditional first rollout of the season, Scuderia Ferrari!  This morning they debuted their new chassis, the F150 (nope, no truck jokes here... yet).  So what does it look like?

Like this:

Pictures of last year's car can be found here, and may be useful for comparison purposes.  Two things immediately leap out at me.  First off, the nose is higher. It's more like Red Bull's 2010 challenger, the RB6, then the Ferrari 2010 car, F10.  Well heck, it worked pretty well for Red Bull last year, and in Formula 1 if it works, it gets copied.  The second thing visible is that the air intakes on the sidepods are more horizontal than last year.  The intake above the driver's head is rounder as well.

Let's take a look at the rest of the car, shall we?
 


The obvious change is from the driver's seat forward.  Last year's car had a serious down-angle from the tires to the nose.  This year, it's flat and straight with a gentle curve down to the high-riding nose.  The area around the airbox and fin is also different, smoother and less profiled.  It looks molded, as opposed to carved.  The exhaust has moved towards the back of the chassis, instead of coming out from the middle of the sidepod.  New logo on the rear, too.

As much as I'd love to point out that there's a difference in the front wing profile, I can't.  These pictures have the final 2010 wing in place, instead of the new one.  That's not uncommon at all, and shouldn't be taken as an indication of a problem.  Supposedly the rear wing is the same, too.  I can't wait to see a team debut the new movable rear wing.  Also supposedly, the rear body is larger as well, so as to allow room for the KERS/fuel cell combination (the KERS unit is surrounded by the fuel bladder in the Ferrari), but I don't see it.

I was surprised when I saw that the team actually released a picture of the rear of the car; usually that's kept heavily under wraps until it's actually on track... keeps opponents from sneaking a peek at the diffuser.  Then I tried to adjust the brightness and contrast in an attempt to bring out some details, and I realized why they didn't mind releasing it: it's blacked out.  Still, some things are visible... it's much simpler than last year, which makes sense, since the FIA has made the double-diffuser illegal.  A surprising small number of fins visible on the diffuser, only three or four.  Maybe that's mandated by the tech regs, maybe not... maybe there's a lot more coming, but they're hidden by the blackness.  We'll see soon enough.

They won five races last year, and nearly got the Driver's Championship.  Will the F150 match that?  Time will tell... and we're only 41 days away from Bahrain!

Posted by: Wonderduck at 08:51 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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